Vegetable variety: an effective strategy to increase vegetable choice in children

Objective: Most children do not meet the recommended intake of vegetables. Variety was identified as a potential factor to increase children's intake of these foods, as it was shown that variety was effective in improving meal composition in adults. Because younger children are suggested to be more responsive to internal satiation signals than to external food-related cues compared with adults, it is not clear whether variety is effective to improve meal composition in 7- to 10-year-old children. Design: Experiment. Setting: Children were assigned one of three different fake food buffets containing pasta, chicken, and either one vegetable (carrots or beans) or two vegetables (carrots and beans). The children were asked to serve themselves a meal that they would like to eat for lunch from the given selection. Subjects: One hundred children (fifty-two boys; mean age 8.8 (SD 1.1) years). Results: Children given the two-vegetable choice served themselves significantly more energy from vegetables (mean 64 (SD 51) kJ, 10.9 (SD 9.4) %) compared with children who were offered only either carrots (mean 37 (SD 25) kJ, 5.9 (SD 6.5) %) or beans (mean 38 (SD 34) kJ, 5.6 (SD 6.3) %). The total energy of the meal was not increased, indicating that children chose a more balanced lunch when offered more vegetables. Conclusions: School-aged children are responsive to food-related cues and variety is effective in increasing their vegetable choice. Serving an assortment of vegetables in school cafeterias might be a simple and effective strategy to improve children's nutrition.